


you're messing around with your tricks (don't turn your back on me baby)

by kitmarlowed



Category: Now You See Me (2013)
Genre: Gen, i just had this on my drive and thought maybe if i upload a bit i'll write more
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 17:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitmarlowed/pseuds/kitmarlowed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"God you got the better of this," Henley says and Danny laughs, levitates the ball and chain and says "If we get arrested I'll be sure to remind you of that."</p>
<p>OR; in which the horsemen get actual powers and stuff happens</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're messing around with your tricks (don't turn your back on me baby)

**Author's Note:**

> I AM AS CONFUSED AS YOU ARE

♞

The problem with staging a show so great it’s never been done before by any stretch and probably can’t be followed is just that. It can’t be followed. They could try, they could plead to the Eye, they could ask Dylan for plans, for something else, but as it is - when they go back to solo work it’s always what they were part of that follows them.

-

When Danny wakes up, flexes his fingers and a pack of cards flutters to the floor on the other side of the room his response, obviously, is to do it again. He brings the tips of his fingers to the pads of his palm and lets them go, watches the door fly open like a wind just tore through the room, coffee cups fall from bookshelves and a lamp falls from his desk. 

He pulls his hands to his chest and concentrates, the door closes but the things stay on the floor. What he sees is an opportunity, what he feels is terror, what he thinks is ‘there’s a show in this’. 

He waves his hand, an old magician’s flourish, meaningless and misdirecting, and he hears the rustling as the cards slide with his hand. The slow smile is for no-one's benefit but his.

-

After two hours he’s lifting things about a metre in the air, give or take, and after three the push and pull is stronger, faster. 

He makes himself a coffee, like a normal person, and sits on the couch, in the centre of a living room strewn with cards (all face cards up, all others down, an exercise in control) and broken things because you have to know that putting things down is better than dropping them. 

J. Daniel Atlas surveys the chaos he’s caused, contained but unusual, against every fibre (or so he’d thought) of his being. Even after the Eye he’s never believed in magic, the Eye kind of shot all illusion in the face, he think he might believe it now.

-

Henley walks through the wall to greet him, doesn’t even knock on the door, she’s shaking and pale and her hair’s a mess. “Danny,” she says, “what’s going on?”

(He’s passed working out that the movements are an unnecessary affectation, that it’s his mind doing the moving not his hands. He thinks about flicking the kettle on, he hears it start to boil.)

“Yours,” he murmurs into her hair, hands rubbing circles over her back, “is cooler than mine,” and when it leaves his mouth he knows it’s a lie, wonders what the others have.

“Merritt called me from New Orleans, he’s coming to see us, I told him to come here, is that okay?” and Danny nods, “that’s fine, did he say anything else?”

“No, but he sounded different.”

Danny pulls a book towards himself, the golden title gleams: “Mystics, Magic, and Mentalism”, he turns to the page on Intangibility and passes it to her.

“Maybe he’s scared,” Danny says and Henley hums, says, “maybe he is.”

-

Turns out Merritt isn’t scared but his bearing is less fun, his eyes are less bright, he says that he’s heard people’s thoughts, that few of them are nice. Danny pities anyone with access to his mind and when Merritt looks at him, eyes narrowing a fraction, and then yells and looks away he resists the urge to smile.

“What did you do, Atlas?” says Jack’s voice from nowhere and Danny flinches, Henley stifles a scream and Merritt says, “are you stuck like that or can you change at will?” 

Jack stands, visible, leaning against a bookshelf, arms crossed and worrying his lip between his teeth. “What the fuck is happening to us?” he says and Danny credits him because it’s not a scream.

-

Merritt takes the floor of Danny’s living room, Henley the couch and Jack folds himself into an armchair. The book has been passed between them many times and Danny takes the time while they’re all sleeping to leaf through it himself - he knows Merritt’s has limits

(“How come you get the best one, huh?”

“You’re the telepath.”

“No I’m not, I can’t do half the stuff that books says I should be able to. I can read minds, influence them a little more than standard hypnotism but I can’t do more than that.”

“Have you tried?”

“Yeah, of course I have.”)

he also knows that Henley fears that she’ll fall through the floor and that Jack doesn’t want to stay invisible and so doesn’t like to use it.

He knows that this whole thing is stupid, dangerous even, but he can’t really bring himself to let it lie.

-

The book says that the strongest people with his... thing can levitate themselves, in extreme and rare cases “the subject/user can manipulate him or herself to not only float or levitate, but to fly at varying speeds depending on control and skill”. He tries the levitation once, falls with a crash and a headache blooming behind his eyes that says leave it alone.

He doesn’t try again.

-

“Does this mean we can do another show? ‘Cause I am so down for that,” Jack says, when they’ve stopped worrying. Henley’s answering laugh is delighted, Merritt’s chuckle genuine and Danny smiles because this is all he wanted in a very roundabout way, says, “think we could top that?”

“Together?” Merritt says, “we probably could.”

“... I’ll get some paper.”

♞

 

He’s not as familiar with New Orleans as Merritt is, he can vaguely remember the bars he’d run through and the streets and the Mardi Gras madness but it isn’t Mardis Gras now, so he follows the others conscious of the fact that there is no crew, no stage-team and no money.

“Henley,” he calls and she blinks back, stops what she’s doing (fiddling with a ball and chain).

“You know,” she says, “this is really heavy and it doesn’t unlock-”

“I know,” he interrupts, “but that’s why we’re here to do the impossible so, logically, what we’re doing has to be impossible or we’re never going to top that show. Uhm, could you help me with something?”

“You,” Henley mutters, following him into what he’s taken to calling his office but is actually the props room for the theatre, “aren’t doing it.”

Danny sighs, kicks over some boxes, “I’m aware of that,” he tells her, pauses and then asks on a rush: “is flying too much?”

“...what?” Henley says slowly, “flying? I don’t know Danny, do you have any wires?”

“I know that this wasn’t in the plan and I know that it sounds crazy but part of what I can do is fly, for a certain definition of flight - it’s more levitation really-” he stops himself talking when she clears her throat, says, “sorry.”

“You can fly?”

“Yeah.”

“God you got the better of this.”

Danny frowns, “if we get arrested I’ll be sure to remind you of that,” and Henley laughs her little laugh and says, serious, “being arrested isn’t in the plan,” and leaves.

-


End file.
